John Audubon (1785-1851) American, Birds of America, 1981 Baby Elephant Folio Edition. First Edition. Created by Roger Tory Peterson and his wife, Virginia Marie Peterson. Designed by Howard Morris and edited by Walton Rawls and Phyllis Benjamin. Contains every single original plate in stunning detail, along with a biography of the artist and his life's work. 

Size: 16 x 12 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. 

John James Audubon (1785-1851) was a French-born American naturalist and painter, celebrated for his detailed studies and illustrations of birds. Born on a Saint Domingue sugarcane plantation, he developed an early passion for ornithology despite his father’s wish for him to pursue a seafaring life. Audubon combined field observation, taxidermy, and artistic skill to document North American birds, traveling extensively through the southern United States and joining Native American hunting parties to study species firsthand. His landmark work, The Birds of America (1827-1839), produced life-sized, color plates that remain among the most acclaimed ornithological publications ever created. While credited with discovering over 25 species and inspiring future naturalists, his legacy is complicated by involvement in slavery, racial prejudice in his writings, and controversies over scientific accuracy and attribution. Despite these issues, Audubon’s influence on ornithology, natural history, and conservation endures, exemplified today by the Audubon Society and ongoing studies of birds in North America.

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